Is free will an illusion? In these two papers, Wegner argues that all human actions are caused and that humans only experience free will as a side effect of consciousness. Donald disagrees. He believe

1. Is free will an illusion?

2. Melissa Santiago

3. My position is against the ability to think of something or an idea and make it happen.

Position 1: My position is that free will is an illusion and that our thoughts prior to an action, is not a causal link from our thoughts that lead to an event.

At best, the evidence to support this conclusion is in a study where participants were told to “Think negative thoughts” (Wegner, p 229) about a victim before using pins on a voodoo doll. This led participants to think that their actions toward the doll would affect the victim. No harm had even been done; therefore, this shows concrete evidence that there is no link between the two.

At worst, the weakest evidence is a study that revealed a tendency to believe that someone who imagined an event, had caused a positive outcome because of the simple thought of the outcome. Mental causation isn’t something that can physically be seen and is simply an illusion where the outcome just happens by chance. (Wegner, p 230).

Position 2: My position is that free will is not an illusion. Our thoughts prior to an action, is the causal link from our thoughts that lead to an event.

At best, the evidence that support this conclusion is an experiment where participants are following an authoritative figure’s orders to apply an electric shock on another participant, because of their failure to perform correctly. Under the direction of someone else, it mentally took the responsibility off the participant following the orders to shock. They continued to shock the individual after being instructed to when they could have objected, since they had the ability to stop at any point during the experiment. (Wegner, p 233).

At worst, the weakest evidence that support this is an experiment where “Participants experienced arm movements of a second person as if the movements were their own.” (Wegner, p 231-232). By standing behind the participants with their arms in place of theirs to look like it is their own arms while they performed movements, instructions had to be consistent with the participants thoughts. The act itself was not an illusion; However, paired up with correctly timed thoughts of an act is what creates the illusion.